‘Mobile internet is worse than the internet; it can destroy our community’ Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox women’s responses to cellphone and smartphone use

This research explores exposure patterns and perceptions of cellphone and smartphone use among Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, while examining symbolic meanings these non-users might attribute to these devices. Triangulation of participant observations, interviews, and a survey, serve to demonstrate that although these populations differ in their cellphone use (the Amish mostly don’t use them and the Ultra-Orthodox only use those deemed to be ‘kosher’), they concur in their non-use of smartphones, deriving from their perception (shared among many religious communities), that smartphone content is impure. Implicit in statements made by these women is the notion that the medium itself is more dangerous than the message. They argue that the smartphone disconnects people from their communities, friends and family, and that it interferes with a person’s relationship with him or herself, and even more importantly – with God.

Dr. Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar is a Ruth Melzer fellow at Katz center for advanced Judaic Studies at Penn University. She is a senior lecturer at Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel, where she teaches courses on research methods, communication, religion, and gender. She is also a scholar at the Israel Democracy Institute, where she studies media usage among the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.
Dr. Neriya Ben-Shahar investigates mass media from the perspectives of religion and gender. Her research addresses the tensions existing between religious values and new technologies among women in Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Her book Strictly Observant: Amish and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Women Negotiating Media was published by Rutgers University Press in 2024.

Sponsored by the Alan D. Leve Endowment for Public History and Outreach

Thursday, June 5, 2025 • 6275 Bunche Hall • 2 PM
‘Mobile internet is worse than the internet; it can destroy our community’
Old Order Amish and Ultra-Orthodox women’s responses to cellphone and smartphone use

Rivka Neriya-Ben Shahar (Sapir Academic College in Sderot, Israel)
Moderator: David N. Myers (UCLA)